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Wine Club
Auberon Waugh
Imust start with a grovel. Avery's under- estimated the greed of Spectator readers, buying only 70 cases of the Pinot Nero delle Venezie 1979 which I praised so enthusiastically in the last offer. Since receiving orders for 360 cases they have been rooting around for more of the 1979 vintage, so far coming up only with the 1980. This is a perfectly decent, if slightly fizzy, wine, and one which I might have recommended at £3.19, but not in the same over-excited tones. It has a lighter colour and lighter taste, a highly acceptable petit- Bourgogne, perhaps, but not to be com- pared, like the extraordinary 1979, to a full- blooded premier cru Beaune. I hope that more of the 1979 will be found, but anybody who is not prepared to accept the 1980 in substitution, and would prefer his money back, should send a postcard im- mediately to Bristol. I am sorry to have put People to the inconvenience.
By way of consolation (at any rate for the big spenders) I am able to announce an offer I have been negotiating for many Months. Ever since discovering 120 cases of the 1969 magnificent Nuits St Georges Roncteres
1969 at the start of this wine club needless to say, Spectator readers gobbled them up in a week — I have been drooling Over a huge choice of old burgundies lying around in Avery's cellars. The trouble was that there were not enough stocks to make them the subject of a single offer.
I do not believe that my final choice of 12 old burgundies in this month's offer could be matched by another wine merchant in the country, and certainly not at anything like this price. The offer is unrepeatable not lust because of the fact that the club can offer wines at a significant discount, or because they are all at pre-Budget prices, but also because we will have cleaned out stocks and these wines will only be seen again, if at all, at auction — or at vastly in- flated prices in a few specialist wine mer- chants.
It was suggested that I should offer a Mixed case of 12 different wines, but my °Isin experience suggests that single bottles bottle useless. One never opens an expensive oottle of wine unless one is with friends, and then one needs two. To those who say 0 bottles are not enough, I would suggest that two bottles of expensive wine are quite enough for a dinner party of six or even eight if you offer cheap white wine first — s°Mething new and incredibly crisp from an unknown area but with a pretty label which You have just discovered in the Wine Socie- ty catalogue at £2.20. Alternatively, you can Order two or more of the same case, but You will have to move fast. Although I do not Propose to operate a socialist rationing system, there are only 200 cases on offer 100 of each — and it will be first come first served. The rest will get their cheques back.
Stupendous efforts have been made to balance the two cases so that there is nothing to choose between them, in price or quality, in vintage or in division between Beaune and Nuits. If one case is sold out first, the other will be substituted without more ado. When they are finished, that will be it.
As Burgundians will see immediately, each case starts cheap and ends very expen- sive indeed. The average price of £8.50 for the 12 — while more than might be asked for the first two in each list — is an unbeatable (and above all, unrepeatable) bargain. A few may be surprised to see a Givry as old as 1971, reckoning that the Cate Chalonnaise is often too light to stay the course. Others may raise their eyebrows to see the single 1973 included in these golden oldies. But they are both deep and magnificent wines, with nothing to choose between them. Personally, I would give Avery's Chambolle Musigny 1972 in case A a slight edge over Chanson's Beaune Clos de Feves 1972 in case B, but then I would also choose the Vaucrains in B slightly before the Clos de Reas in A. And so it goes on. Others will have quite different preferences, anyway, but they are all magnificent. A word about the vintages. The 1971s will need no introduction, but these '72s in my judgment are even stronger and livelier, without a trace of the dreaded 1972 sharp- ness. It has become fashionable to say that the 1970s are showing their age, but in my experience this applies only to the domaine- bottled wines, which are always bottled too late. Even de Vogue's 1970 Musigny is distinctly tired beside these two grand cru specimens. Finally, a few Burgundians will certainly want to know who or what is the Chevalier de l'Arquebuse. The short answer is that he is Monsieur Remoissenet, who revived this ancient order with himself as its only member to epater the Tastevins. This 1971 wine is a blending of various premier cru Beaunes, mostly Greves and Marcon- nets, which for some reason has travelled to Italy and back before settling in Bristol. But it tastes lovely, and might prove a talking point at any of your next six dinner parties.
Some of these wines, are in slightly better supply than others and may, if you like them particularly, be ordered from Avery's independently of the Spectator Wine Club at the normal price. In order of price, by the case, delivered, they are: Chambolle Musigny 1972 at £8.05, Nuits St Georges Vaucrains 1972 at £9.45, Aloxe Corton 1971 at £10.35, Mazis Chambertin 1970 at £11.79. Add any Budget increase and move sharpish.
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